Wednesday, 30 June 2010

If you like using sketches take a look at Sketch Inspiration,there is a new sketch every week and loads of sketches from previous weeks.If you upload your layout to the gallery you get the chance to win a fab prize from the sponsors of the week as well as looking at all the other layouts on there,it is a great source of inspiration. Here's this weeks sketch:

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Lastly, I'd just like to share some photo's with you that I took when I went for a walk with my friend the other day.I see this poppy field every day and kept saying I must bring my camara,well this time I did.I'm not a brilliant photograper.I only point and shoot,but I am really pleased with how they turned out.

Tuesday, 29 June 2010

This week at The Shabby Tea Room there is a great summer themed challenge with gorgeous bright colours,think hot pink,lime green and turquoise. Here's the photo inspriration for this fun challenge.

I had great fun making this card,I use to make pinwheels for my girls when they were little,so when I saw the photo I knew I wanted to have a go at making a pinwheel for my card. I used Cosmo Cricket 'DeLovely' papers and the stick for the pinwheel is a kebab stick wrapped in ribbon.

Sunday, 27 June 2010

I'm just loving all this glorious sunshine we've been having lately,it makes you feel so much happier when the sun is shining.I haven't had to be stuck in the kitchen making dinner,I've been cooking outside,lots of BBQ's around friends houses,having drinks in the pub beer garden,good times!
I've managed to do a couple of layouts this week,the first one I did was from a sketch that I saw on Morag Cutts blog. I love to have a look on Morags blog,she does some gorgeous layouts and cards.

I turned the sketch on it's side:

I used my April Scrapagogo kit for this layout and even used a bit of glimmer mist.Thanks for the great sketch,Morag,and hope it becomes a regular thing on your blog.
The next LO is done using a sketch as well,as I was blog hopping last week I came across this sketch blog Sketch Inspirations. It's a fab place for inspiration with lots of LO's to look at and a new sketch every week. It's great to look at other LO's and see how other scrapbookers have used the sketch.

I used papers from The Girls Paperie and lots of flowers!

I'm off now to enjoy some more of the sunshine and hope it's shining where ever you are.

I decided to do a layout for this week's challenge and saw this sketch on Julie Bonner's Blog so used that as inspiration too.

My Baby Sister

I added pearls to the paper doilley and put a piece of lace underneath the torn paper.The PP was My Minds Eye and Girls Paperie.

Lastly, I'd like to thank the DT from CCCB for choosing my Venice themed card as their winner last week,I was very honored and I've even got a prize heading my way,how exciting!!!
Thank you for leaving such lovely comments,I do appreciate them.

Wednesday, 23 June 2010

The challenge this week at The Shabby Tea Room is to use this photo and /or stripes as inspiration.

Here's the card I did using a stamp from Penny Black and water colouring it with Tim holtz Distress Inks.I used some twill tape and frayed the edges laying it underneath the stamped image.I love the alphabets from Cosmo Cricket with the woodgrain effect,they go great with my tree image.

Tuesday, 22 June 2010

I enjoyed this sketch as I normally only use the one photo so it was good to get an extra photo on the page. The photo's I used on this layout were taken on Jodie's 20th Birthday,she didn't like the thought of not been a teenager anymore so she calls herself a 'Twenteen'.

The papers are Melody Ross 'Homespun Chic' and the borders are 'Artsy Urban' also from Melody Ross.I used part of a Prima felt strip to mat the small photo.The flower was made from a brown paper bag (my favourite way to make flowers at the moment) and then added a Prima swirl.

Monday, 21 June 2010

It's one of my very good friend's Birthday today,so when I saw this sketch I knew I wanted to use it to make her Birthday card.She loves cutie cards so I used the Lily of the Valley fairy stamp and Basic Grey Lemonade papers. I coloured her in using Pro-Markers.

Sunday, 20 June 2010

Kirsty from City Crafter Challenge Blog has picked Venice as the theme for this weeks challenge. I got really excited when I saw what the challenge was because I knew I'd got some Venice themed papers stashed away somewhere that I'd never used.Venice is one of the places on my list to visit,it seems such a beautiful,romantic city,who knows one day I may get there!
Kirsty posted a beautiful photogragh of Venician masks for inspiration.

I really enjoyed doing this challenge as it was something a little bit different to what I'd normally do,in fact I ended up making 2 cards! Here's the first card I made with the Crafty Individuals 'Travels in Italy' paper pack and coordinating stamp.

I picked my favourite paper with the mask on as the background and stamped onto the tag in Milled Lavender Distress Ink.I edged the tag in Dusty Concord and added a flower,swirl and sentiment.
I made the flower from a brown paper bag,punching out about 8 scalloped circles, stamping them with a text stamp,add a brad and scrunch all the layers up then open out.The swirl is a Tim Holtz Grungeboard Element painted gold and distressed with Dusty Concord.
The next card I made was for Fathers Day using part of the same stamp and some Tim Holtz sheet music from the Lost and Found paper pack,then added some buttons.

Friday, 18 June 2010

At The Shabby Tea Room this week it's all about having fun in the sun and this week the weather has been gorgeous,not sure how long it will last though!So we need to make the most of it,we've managed to get a couple of BBQ's in this week and just made the most of been in the garden.One of my favourite things to do in the summer when my children were younger was to go to the park and play on the swings with them.How I miss all that now they're all grown up.
I've done this Birthday card for my lovely friend Maria who's on her holidays so hopefully she won't be looking on here and see the card before she opens it.

Maria adores Magnolia so I used Summer Tilda with Bow colouring her in with distress inks and stamped the Magnolia Tree Swing and cut it out with a craft knife.The patterned paper I used was from the Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety and Material girl range .
Where the rope is on the swing I wrapped twine around it to give a more realistic look and a bit of texture. I then scattered tiny Prima flowers around the tree and added some pearls.The Fabulous Friend stamp,oval punch,scallop oval punch and the border punch are all from SU.

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

I used my May Scrapagogo kit for this sketch.The quote "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass but learnig to dance in the rain" is from Tim holtz Good Thought stamp set.It is such a lovely sentiment so I decided to used it as my title.

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

I hope everybody had a great weekend,I had a busy weekend so didn't get any crafting done.I went on a girls night out Friday night and Saturday night me,Mick,Jodie and Paige went to the local pub to watch the England v U.S.A match.I'm not a big football fan but I do like to watch England in the World Cup.The atmosphere was fantastic with everybody just really enjoying themselves,it was like one big party.
I love doing shabby chic style pages and got the idea for this page from Marion Smiths blog, She does a lot of paint effects and I love the way she white washed the paper to give that shabby chic feel,so I thought I'd give it a go myself.

I added a gorgeous Prima pearl and rose corner, a flower I made myself with Nestabilities and a couple of Prima leaves.I trailed some crystal stems,roses and Prima Innoscence flowers up the side of the photo.I used glimmer mist and Victorian Velvet Distress Ink on the flowers.The chipboard was painted white and then had the glimmer mist and ink treatment.
I've also done another LO this week using the sketch and colour combos from The Colour Room.

I loved the colours in the palette and used Papermania Rose Garden.

Lastly, I entered a men's card on the The Shabby Tea Room challenge blog last week and as I said I don't do many male cards and I'm never really happy with them so I was really shocked to see I was a Top 3 winner.
That's it for now but I would like to thank everybody who takes the time to leave a comment, it really is appreciated as always.

Sunday, 13 June 2010

I love using sketches and one of my favourite places to find a sketch is Sketchy Thursdays, it's a great place for inspiration with a great design team.This sketch is for July Guest Design Team Challenge,I really like this sketch and knew straight away what photo and papers I wanted to use with it.

Here's what I've done with the sketch:

The papers I used were from The Girls Paperie- Paper Girl range which are right up my street with their pretty vintage look,it's not very often I buy the same papers twice but I will be with these.
I made a tear in one of the strips and put a piece of lace behind it and then got the sewing machine out to do lots of sewing.

I knew I wanted to use the Jenni Bowlin 'GROW' Bingo card with the photo I was using, it's a photo of Paige when she was 1 year old and had just learnt to walk,she's now nearly 15 years old.They grow up so quickly and she has grown into a beautiful young lady who I'm proud to call my daughter.

Friday, 11 June 2010

As we are well into June now and it's the month for weddings the theme this week at the City Crafter Challenge Blog is 'Here comes the Bride'. My favourite colour combination for wedding cards is black and white/cream,it's just so timeless and elegant.

I went with a simple design for this card using GCD Paris Nights paper stack.The main paper is flocked so is very tactile,I used a border strip from the pack and added a diamante buckle and some tulle.I stamped "as you start your Married Life" from the Special Blessings stamp set from SU onto a journaling block. Lastly I made some flowers using Cuttlebug Flowers #1 and spraying them with water, scrunching them up and then opening them back out.

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

This week in The Shabby Tea Room is 'Just For Dad' just in time for Fathers Day.I don't do many mens cards so this was a challenge for me as I like pretty cards but I've got to make a Fathers Day card so here's mine.

The striped paper is Basic Grey Cappella which I sewed around the edge in running stitch and as usual I distressed the edges and inked in Vintage Photo Distress Ink.I used Grungeboard Elements and Alphas which I embossed with a Tim Holtz embossing folder.I painted the Grungeboard and then swiped over the raised embossed area with Vintage Photo.The advertisment was from Graphic 45 and then I just added a few buttons and a Tim Holtz memory pin.

Monday, 7 June 2010

On Friday morning six of us set off to Cheshire for a crafty weekend at Crab Apple Crafts in Frodsham.We did a card class in the afternoon taught by Debi using Amuse Artstamps which are really sweet rubber stamps.We got to make 6 cute little cards,we even made some male cards which was good as I don't really do men's cards.It was a really good afternoon, Debi was lovely and her cards she'd designed for the class were fab. Here are the cards we made.

After the class we went to our hotel,we stopped at the Holiday Inn,Runcorn where there was a spa,so we dropped our bags in our rooms and headed straight to the jacuzzi and steam room.I've got to tell you though one of us,not naming names, ended up in the mens changing rooms because they hadn't got their glasses on and didn't realise until a man said something to her.Needless to say we didn't let her forget it all weekend.We chilled for an hour in the spa and then got ready for dinner.What bliss not having to worry about getting dinner and tidying up after everyone.

After a late night we all went to bed only to be woke up by the fire alarms at 4.30am,we were not happy to have to get up at that time and wait on the carpark for 30 minutes but we did find the funny side later.

I know I look like Del Boy with my zebra print dressing gown but I didn't expect the whole of the hotel to see it.
Next morning we headed back to Crab Apple Tree Crafts for their monthly crop.What a lovely bunch of ladies who I'd like to thank for making us feel so welcome,we had a great laugh with them and hope to see them all again sometime soon.I managed to get three LO's finished which I was pleased with because we were all very tired and didn't expect to do much.

I'd like to thank Rosemary,Nige and everybody else that we met over the weekend,everybody was so friendly and welcoming.We will be back!!!

Sunday, 6 June 2010

The title for The Shabby Tea Room Challenge is "Dear to my Heart" so the theme this week is hearts and I've used lots of them from the heart paper to the stamped hearts.

I used the Pink Paislee Cupid Collection papers and inked all the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink.Cut the blue heart paper to 14cmx19.5cm and glue to an A5 card base.I then cut the cream heart paper to 10cmx19.5cm and used the Martha Stewart heart border punch on both edges,adhere to blue paper and sew around the edge.The brown check paper is 6cm x 19cm and the cream paper to go on top of brown is 5cm x 19cm
I stamped a collection of hearts from SU I {Heart}Hearts stamp set in brown ink and cut them out and used a die cut from the Cupid Collection,use 3D foam to attach the hearts and keep the diecut flat.
Lastly add a cream ribbon and glue dot a button to the middle of bow.
I'll be back tomorrow to show you what I did on our crafty weekend away with the girls!

Tuesday, 1 June 2010

This weeks challenge at "Just Us Girls" Challenge is dry embossing so I really wanted to join in with this one as I have just purchased some Tim Holtz texture fade embossing folders and it was a good chance to use them.I really like the embossed Bingo Card so decided to use that on my card.

After embossing I swiped Antique Linen distress ink all over the bingo card.The papers I used are G.C.D. Melody Ross Homespun Chic.I took the sewing pattern paper and cut one of the ladies out and used the rest to cover the card base. I then choose the small floral print and small square paper and cut two rectangles to go behind the bingo card,all the paper was inked with antique linen..
I sewed the two pieces of PP to the sewing pattern paper and zigzag stitched it to the card.I glued down the bingo card and attached some lace across the bottom edge,then put the lady down the right side of card.I made the flower using the three larger sizes of the Cuttlebug flower#1,I cut out two of each of the sizes and inked the edges,Stack them together and put a brad through the centre and start scrunching them ,leaving the bottom one flat,then open them out to get a flower shape.

Lastly I added some buttons,a ticket,pearls and stamped a '4 you' on a punched mini tag.
Back soon.
xxxxDebxxxx